Rush
by xXxAlways.NeverxXx
Summary: "You're rushing into this because you're afraid you'll change your mind." Maybe Jacob's words struck home a little more than Bella let on. Life is full of choices, but is Bella making the right one?


_So yeah, this is my first Twilight fic. I mostly wrote it at 3am, after seeing Eclipse and being randomly struck by inspiration. It's mostly based on the Eclipse movie, just because I haven't read the book in over a year, so I don't remember it that well. And of course, this is pretending Breaking Dawn never happened, because I honestly hated that book, and I think Bella should have chosen Jacob. Anywho, read, enjoy, maybe even leave a review. Hopefully I've managed to keep everybody resonably in character._

_Oh, and obviously I don't own Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse or any of their characters._

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**Rush**

_You're rushing into this because you're afraid you'll change your mind._

They were Jacob's words. At the time, Bella had shot them down, ignored them. She'd honestly believed that she wasn't rushing anything, that this was a normal, sensible pace. She loved Edward after all, adored him. And he loved her, protected her. What more could she want? Love conquers all.

Except...

Except what did they actually have in common, besides a mutual love of being in love? They didn't actually do anything together, except sit and talk about how much they loved each other, about what they'd do for each other. Some days they'd just sit in silence, reading or just enjoying each others company... but how long could that go on for? How long could a relationship formed purely on the premise of being madly in love last? And even more than that, the whole basis of the relationship thus far had been the unlikelihood of it all, the vampire and the human. Once Bella wasn't the human anymore, well... well she worried he'd lose interest, become bored. And maybe, once she was a vampire too, Edward would seem less... exotic. The whole thing could fizzle out in a pathetic display of poor choices orchestrated mostly by hormones and young love.

As Bella stared at her reflection in the mirror the thought of walking down the aisle made her stomach churn. This all felt so... wrong. The wedding had nothing of Bella in it, everything having been picked out by Alice, including the wedding dress Bella now wore. It wasn't that it wasn't beautiful, it was just that the beauty of it didn't suit Bella. Contrary to the meaning of her nickname, literally "Beautiful" in Italian, Bella had never been one for beautiful, feminine things. Or tradition, which was what this whole wedding reeked of. Beauty and tradition. This wasn't how she'd pictured it as a little girl, and this certainly wasn't how she'd pictured feeling.

The door to the lobby of the church creaked open and Renee slipped through the crack. She grinned proudly at her daughter, but Bella's return smile wavered, and her eyes filled with tears as she glimpsed the sheer amount of people waiting inside the church. Why had she left everything to Alice?

"Aww, honey, don't worry." Renee quickly wrapped her arms around the bride-to-be, hugging her daughter tightly. "Are you nervous?" Not trusting herself to reply, Bella simply nodded, and wondered if Edward could hear her mother's thoughts from where he stood at the altar. "It's okay honey. It's normal to be nervous on your wedding day. It's a big step." Renee gave a comforting, motherly smile, but Bella felt far from comforted. Yes, it was normal to be nervous on you wedding day. But this feeling of rush and general wrongness, this had been slowly building for the last month or so.

But of course, she couldn't say any of that to Renee, so she just smiled at her mother, who gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. With one last, proud, motherly smile, Renee disappeared back into the church.

It wasn't really the wedding that scared her so much as what was to come after scared her was never seeing her friends or family again, never coming back to Forks. Being alive and eighteen forever. Marriage was 'till death do you part, but in this case, that wasn't an commitment she was about to make was supposed to last until the end of time, something she couldn't even imagine. It was so... huge.

But any second now the music would start and that would be that. She'd walk down the aisle and say "I do" and it would all be over. Which was what she wanted. Wasn't it? Why was she doubting it now? With a deep breath, Bella closed her eyes, tried to focus, to think. What did she want?

At first, an image of Edward came to her, and she was so satisfied with this that she almost opened her eyes. But slowly, Edward changed, morphed, and soon she was starring at an image of an entirely different man behind her eyelids. Jacob. And as this image of Jacob become more vivid in her mind, she could feel his hands on her waist, his breath on her cheek, his warmth radiating to her. And then, his lips, soft and warm, gentle but urgent, against her own. She could remember their one real kiss, just before the fight against the newborns, when the thought of losing him burned. And now, here she was, marrying another man, happy to lose him and leave him behind. And suddenly, the reality of the fact that after tonight she would _never see Jacob again_ hit her like a train. Her eyes flew open and she gasped at the way that thought tore a hole though her chest. It occured to her that she'd been putting this thought off, pretending it a was a reality that didn't exist. But it _did_. Not only was she giving up being with him, but she was giving up _seeing_ him. He would grow-up and grow old, have lovers and friends, have children and grandchildren and Bella would never get to see any of it.

From behind her, the main door opened and Charlie walked in, straightening his tie. He smiled at his daughter and took his place beside her. Oh god. It was time. Suddenly, sweat broke out along Bella's brow and a line from Jessica's valedictorian speech came back to her; "_This isn't a time to make hard and fast decisions, this is a time to make mistakes."_ Suddenly, every part of this felt like a mistake, from the dress to Edward. Getting engaged felt like a mistake. Suddenly, the idea of being young, of really living and enjoying being young, felt so apealing. She'd been trying so hard to grow up fast for Edward, to be this girl who fit in with him because she didn't fit in anywhere else. But as she heard the first note of her music start up, their relationship felt so empty. Edward had come along and swept her off her feet, and it had been so sudden and dramatic and amazing that it had eclipsed everything else. It had seemed so perfect and fated that she'd just assumed it was meant to be. But she realised that there had to be more than that, more than words and feelings and promises. Edward was a boyfriend, a lover, but that was it. She needed a best-friend, and she hadn't even realised how completely Jacob had filled that role, in a way that Edward never could.

Charlie looked to Bella questioningly as she she bent over and pulled off her high-heels. She could barely believe what she was about to do. She should have entered the church now, everyone would be wondering what was up with the delay. She wondered if any of the Cullens would chase her. Surely they'd catch up to her long before she could reach her destination. She turned to her father.

"Dad, you were right, about everything. Marriage is something for when I'm older, much older, and I think I only just realised that. I might be about to make a huge mistake, but I don't think it's as big as the one I'd make by walking down that aisle." For a moment, Charlie didn't say anything, just absorbed this in his typically stoic Charlie fashion, keeping his emotions to himself. And then finally...

"It's Jacob isn't it?" He asked. Bella just nodded, and then turned to leave. Charlie grabed her arm, and for a moment she thought he was going to stop her. But instead he dropped something into her hand. He gave a small, sheepish smile. "Good luck." Bella looked down at her hand, which was now holding her father's car keys. She grinned.

"Thanks dad." And with that, she ran out the door, trying not to imagine Edward's face as he discovered she'd left him standing at the altar. Trying not to let the gravity of the situation hit her yet. Somehow, this choice, it felt bigger than her decision to get married, bigger than any choice she'd made so far. It was so final. A clean break.

She lost time trying to fit her wedding dress into Charlie's squad car, but made up for it as she sped across town. She broke several laws, speeding, running red lights and stop signs. She felt so reckless all of a sudden, so... _alive_. As she made it to the reservation she was going well over the speed-limit. She tore into Jacob's lot, slamming on the breaks and squealing to a stop in the driveway. She jumped out of the car so fast she fell over, but she didn't care.

"JACOB!" She yelled as she pulled herself up, not even bothering to dust off the wedding dress. Suddenly it didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered but finding him. She took off running towards the woods, somehow just _knowing_ that that was where he'd be. "JAKE!" She screamed at the top of her lungs. She could see movement in the trees and she was praying for it to be him.

And then he emerged, shirtless, clearly having only just phased back into his human form. His eyes were narrowed suspiciously as he took her in, dress and all. She felt that maybe she ought to stop, explain herself. But she couldn't stop now. She ran into him at full speed, hitting his chest and wrapping her arms around him, burrying her face into his shoulder. She was crying, when had that started? Practically sobbing as she hugged him tightly and he wasn't even hugging back, just standing there, expressionless.

"I'm so sorry Jake." She managed to choke out, pulling away enough to be able to look him in the eyes. He refused to meet her gaze, chosing instead to stare at some spot off in the distance, just past her left shoulder. His jaw was set in a hard line, clenched tightly, and she could see the muscles in his throat tighten.

"If you're here to try and beg me to come to the wedding, your wasting your time." He spat the words out, and she could hear in them the hate and hurt that had been building up ever since he'd heard of Edward's proposal. And there was more than that too. Defeat. He had the empty, hurt, angry tone of a man who had finally given up. Her mind was spinning with all the words and explanations she wanted to give him, but nothing was comming out. And now he was slowly prying her off of him, about to turn away, fully prepared to leave her life forever. Her arm shot out, grabbed his shoulder to stop him.

"I love you." They were the only words she could get out, and she knew that right now they weren't the right ones. But it felt so good to say, to say it and really allow herself to _feel_ it. To accept them as the truth and finally realize that she loved him more than anyone, more than anything. She loved who he was, loved the fun they had together, how they had things to talk about, common interests. She loved how she could feel the heat of his body, loved the feeling of his heartbeat. She loved everything about him, and most of all how he made her feel. _Perfect_, just the way she was, without having to change or give-up anything.

"Don't taunt me." Jacob snarled at her over his shoulder, before shrugging her hand away like it was nothing. He turned away again, his shoulders set, body tense. She was hurting him just by being here, because she couldn't get the right words out to make him understand. She ran a hand through her hair in frustration. He was walking away, and any minute he would phase and then he'd be gone.

"I'm not here to ask you to come to the wedding." She called after him, but he didn't stop, didn't turn at all. In fact, he didn't even slow. She only had one last chance, she had to use the right words. "I'm not going to ask you to go because I'm not going either." Her voice wavered on those last four words, almost cracked as she yelled them to Jacob's back. He stopped, his entire body still as the words washed over him. He turned to face her slowly, face unreadable.

"What did you say?" He asked, walking towards her now, every movement slow, drawn out, suspisious. There was hope in his eyes, shadowed by something darker, something she couldn't place.

"I'm not going." She repeated, meeting his eyes and saying each word slowly so there was no room for misunderstanding, because this was the single most important thing she would probably ever tell anyone.

"Say it again." He'd almost reached her now, and he was starring her down with an almost frightening intensity.

"I'm not getting maried Jacob." She wasn't repeating anymore, she was rephrasing, getting the words right, perfect. He'd reached her now, his hand was on her cheek, brushing her hair out of her face. He leaned towards her, and she could feel his breath on her cheek, his lips next to her ear.

"Why?" He whispered the words to her, and she could practically feel his heartbeat.

"Because I was making the wrong choice." Her hand found his cheek, turned his face to hers and pulled him closer until his forehead was resting against her own. "And I came here to fix it." She looked up at him and caught the grin that was spreading slowly across his pulled her into a tight hug and she tucked her head under his chin. "I love you Jacob." She whispered. And then he was kissing her, pulling her closer until she couldn't possibly get any closer to him without physically becoming part of him. His hands were in her hair, cradling her face, on her hips, always moving as if he couldn't decide how to hold her, because no matter how he did it wasn't enough. When he finally pulled back, it wasn't far, and his hand cupped her cheek. The smile on his face lit up the whole forest, and Bella smiled back.

"I knew you'd make the right choice." He told her, his smile shifting into a cocky smirk. Bella shoved him playfully.

"I just ran away from my wedding and admitted my deepest feelings to you and your response is to _gloat_?" She raised an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms across her chest, trying to look annoyed but barely able to hold back her smile. Jacob laughed, but as he met her eyes again his face grew serious once more. He pulled her back to him and kissed her again, this time it was short, sweet. He kissed her forehead.

"I love you Isabelle Swan." He told her softly. "And I promise you, you made the right choice.." She snuggled against his chest and listened for a moment to his heartbeat, appreciating it's presence.

"I know I did." She replied softly, closing her eyes as his arms circled around her. "It feels right."

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_Well, I hope it was okay. If you liked it, please review. I've got a decent idea in mind to turn this into more than a one shot, but I'm not sure if I will or not. Let me know if you'd want to read more._


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